Have you ever been in a relationship and, despite meaning well and wanting to love your partner back, you simply could not muster up the same level of reciprocal passion?

If so, then you know what the U.S. Ryder Cup team feels like.

Passion cannot be manufactured. It is pure. It comes from within, not externally.

This is exactly what the American Ryder Cuppers have been fighting for years. Is it the reason they lost the Ryder Cup to Europe by a lopsided 17 ½-to-10 ½ score? Not entirely. The European players played better, made the clutch shots and putts the Americans didn’t.

But, when you pit 24 of the world’s best players together on teams of 12, any minuscule edge, even if intangible, can make a difference.

The Americans mean well. They want to win. They care. They are prideful. And winning that simply 17-inch-tall gold Ryder Cup every two years means a lot to them.

But not as much as it does to the European players.

Ask any European Ryder Cup player whether he would rather win a major championship or be part of a winning Ryder Cup team and, almost to the man, he will tell you the Ryder Cup means more.

Ask any of the U.S. players and their answer will be the opposite.

That doesn’t make the American players selfish. It’s about culture. The Europeans always have cherished and embraced the team concept more.

The Americans just don’t have the same innate connection as the European have with each other.

Take, for example, Patrick Reed’s rant to the New York Times that he was ticked off Jordan Spieth didn’t want to be paired with him despite their success together in the previous two Ryder Cups — a claim a source rebutted Monday by saying Reed is “so full of s–t.”

Spieth and Justin Thomas paired together and went 3-1. Reed was paired with Tiger Woods twice and they went 0-2.

Reed also was sat for two team sessions and took a shot at U.S. captain Jim Furyk when he said, “For somebody as successful in the Ryder Cup as I am, I don’t think it’s smart to sit me twice.”

“Every day, I saw ‘Leave your egos at the door,’ ’’ Reed said about a sign in the team room. “They [the Europeans] do that better than us.’’

The Euros didn’t disagree.

“I just think we all get along so well,’’ Rory McIlroy said. “We’ve known each other for a long time and there’s a continuity in our group that maybe the other side don’t quite have. Obviously, we all have our separate lives going on, but once we get together for the Ryder Cup, we all come together as one.’’

Furyk, earlier in the week, tried to downplay any notion that the Europeans have more camaraderie, saying, “I think it’s funny how when a team does well and they are successful and everyone is all smiles, it appears that there’s a lot of cohesion. Then when a team is struggling and not playing as well and you’ve got the frowns on the faces, it appears that there’s no [cohesion].

“This [U.S.] group is very easy when it comes to team and cohesion. They get on very well. They go on vacations [together]. They hang out together. Most of these guys kind of understand the dynamics of a team room and look forward to it.”

The Europeans, though, live for it.

The tears that flowed from the European players when they clinched the cup Sunday afternoon at Le Golf National told you all you need to know about what this means to them. Sergio Garcia, the heartbeat of the European team, was still in the midst of his match against Rickie Fowler, and he cried while he tried to take golf shots that no longer mattered with the cup already clinched.

When the matches were over and the Europeans convened in the media center for the post-match interview, entertainment ensued, and it was all more evidence how how sympatico these players are, finishing one another’s sentences and tweaking each other.

The best anecdote to come out of Sunday night in the interview room was the revelation by Ian Poulter that European captain Thomas Bjorn promised his players that, if they won the cup, he’d get some body art with either the final score and/or each player’s initials.

“There could be a visit to a tattoo parlor coming soon for Mr. Bjorn on his head,’’ McIlroy chimed in.

“Plenty of real estate there,” Justin Rose quipped, taking a shot at Bjorn’s baldness.

“Let me put it this way: It’s going to go on a [body] part that only Grace [his girlfriend] will see,” Bjorn said.

Then, with a smile, Bjorn added, “The worst decision I made all week.’’